Sunday, October 28, 2012

Halloween Costumes Ripped From The Headlines

Not sure of the status of the issue of Bazooka Magazine that this article was originally meant for, so I'm going to go ahead and post it before Halloween's completely over with just in case it gets cut for no longer being relevant.. And yes, I realize it would have made even more sense to post it before all the weekend Halloween parties, but sometimes I'm don't brain good.

As
an adventure game industry professional (aka someone who makes up
stories about magical hobos), I go to a lot of conventions throughout
the year. Since most of them have at least some costuming events, by the
time Halloween rolls around, I’ve already seen the year’s new geek and
pop culture-related costumes--Katniss Everdeens, assorted Avengers,
assorted slutty Avengers, Girls With Dragon Tattoos, and all the rest.
What I don’t get a sneak peek of are the more political/topical
costumes, because most geeks know more about The United Federation of
Planets than our own system of government. Therefore, the Halloween
costumes that I find most entertaining are the ones that come from the
world of politics and current events. Since I have no doubt that our
readers put my personal amusement high on their list of priorities when
coming up with a costume, I’ve put together a few costume suggestions. The KONY 2012 GuyFor a few weeks, Kony himself was in the running as a 2012 Halloween costume, but all the slacktivists who were just so fucking concerned
about the plight of child soldiers in Africa predictably forgot all
about it after a week or so. Some found out that the people behind the
video supported warlords and regimes every bit as bad as Kony and
decided to just pretend that they’d never shared the video. Others forgot
about the poor little guys as soon as it stopped being a “thing” on the
internet. Not long after the Kony video dropped off the radar, one of
the fine upstanding Christian missionaries behind the video got totally
fucked up and ran naked through the streets of San Diego furiously
masturbating. That shit got its own South Park song, which makes it fully costume-worthy.Pros: It’s
a really simple costume. You just have to get all hopped up on
goofballs, get nekkid, and wander around beating your dick like it owes
you money. Cons: You’re going to get arrested. Occupy ProtesterJust
when the T.E.A. Party’s tri-cornered hats and badly spelled signs had
run their course, along came the Occupy movement. Since it didn’t have
corporate sponsorship and advocated real systemic change, the image of
the Occupy protester didn’t fare as well as that of his astroturfed,
low-information, gun toting counterpart. By the time the pundits and
politicians from our two not-at-all-exactly-the-same political parties
were done, the Occupy protester had become a filthy, violent, almost
feral anarchist and/or socialist vagrant who was simultaneously an
over-educated, bourgeois hippie with an iPhone and a trust fund. Because
we Americans don’t know the meaning of the words “cognitive
dissonance.” Pros: This
is another easy costume. All you really need is a snarky “I am the 99%”
sign and a complete lack of understanding of what it’s like to live
paycheck to paycheck. Congo drums, Communist Manifesto, and poop are totally optional. Cons: This
costume is only good for house parties, because just about every single
person who will be handling your food and drinks if you go out is a
member of the 99%, so the chances are good that at least one of them
will be pissed off by your costume. If you don’t understand why this is a
bad thing, you should probably watch Waiting. Vladimir Fucking PutinIf
somebody submitted a Bond script with Vladimir Putin as the villain,
the studio would send it back with a note that the bad guy is too
unbelievably over-the-top. I mean, the guy flies supersonic jets as a
hobby, hunts whales with a crossbow,
and probably punches bears just because he can. Most recently, he
dressed up in a bird costume and flew a hang-glider to get a bunch of
endangered cranes to migrate, because even guys who punch bears have a
heart. Pros: This
is one of those costumes that most people won’t get (even if you go the
crane route), but those who do will really appreciate.Cons: Vladimir Putin might find out about it, kill you, and drink your blood from your own skull. Romney Administration-Era Big Bird The
Big Bird meme came out of the first debate between Romney and Obama,
and is in many ways a perfect snapshot of everything that’s wrong with
the American political system. Those on the right were willing to
blindly accept that cutting PBS funding, which is .000014% of the
federal budget, was a meaningful example of fiscal responsibility. Those
on the left were more outraged by the idea of losing a giant puppet
than by indefinite detention, erosion of Constitutional rights, and the
extrajudicial assassination of American citizens. While a lot of
political cartoons and memes have gone with the “Big Bird as
Thanksgiving turkey” concept, that probably won’t be easy to make work
as a costume. Instead, you’ll probably want to go with “Big Bird as a
homeless person,” complete with ratty old coat, fingerless gloves, and
bottle of Thunderbird. Pros: Everybody likes Big Bird, even Mitt Romney. Cons: To
be honest, the whole Big Bird thing has kind of run its course. The
sheer number of memes about it made it get old pretty fast. A DroneAs
I hinted in the previous entry, one of the (many) Obama deal-breakers
for me that Democratic party loyalists are willing to blissfully ignore
is the fact that Obama has been very liberal in his use of drones,
especially in foreign countries we’re not actually at war with. Worse
still, he’s used drones to carry out the summary assassination of
American citizens without the slightest hint of due process, which I’m
pretty sure used to be frowned up by most Americans. If you also feel
this is kind of a big deal, a drone costume will double nicely as a
soapbox. Pros: If
you get drunk and kill somebody while driving home, you can
retroactively declare them terrorists so that nobody will label you a
criminal.Cons: This is going to be a bulky costume, and most people only have a vague idea of what drones look like. A Binder Full of Women One
of Mitt Romney’s biggest obstacles with the Republican base is the fact
that he’s a Mormon. A lot of Christians, especially evangelicals,
believe that the Church of Latter Day Saints is at best a misguided
interpretation of the Christian religion, and some believe it’s part of a
vast Satanic conspiracy. Voters whose social compasses point a little
more to the left have problems with the church because of its history of
polygamy and underage marriage. As a result, Romney has been quiet
about the details of his religious beliefs. Here’s a little hint, Mitt:
If you want to downplay your involvement in a religious sect vilified
for treating women as property, it’s probably not a good idea to use a
phrase that suggests you collect them like goddamn Pokemons. Pros: The phrase “binder full of women” is inherently funny, even without Romney’s political baggage being attached to it. Cons: This
is one of those high-concept costumes that you’re going to have to make
yourself. It will be hard to come up with something that gets the point
across without being a huge pain in the ass to actually wear. If
you don’t like these costume ideas, you can always fall back on
something in the “slutty Black Widow” genre, assuming you can pull it
off. I’ve seen them before, but I won’t complain about seeing it again.